Washington, D.C. – Visitors to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, which opens September 24, can finally pay their respects to St. Louis Cardinals centerfielder Curt Flood.
Flood, an African American who played for the Cardinals in the 1960s, was never voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He spent 12 seasons with the team, including three trips to the World Series. Now, his jersey, with the number 21, hangs honorably in the museum’s sports gallery and pays homage to an All-Star career, which included his 1969 lawsuit against Major League Baseball that eventually led to free agent contracts and bigger paydays for players.
A few feet away from Flood’s jersey are Jesse Owens’ black leather track cleats, worn in the 1936 Berlin Olympics where he won four medals. Joe Louis’ boxing gloves, cracked and worn from years of body blows, are preserved in a glass case. Gymnast Gabrielle Douglas’ bright blue leotard, worn during her first year of competition, is on display.
A year ago, a collection like this was essentially homeless. Now, there is dedicated space for the artifacts and objects that, welded together, depict the history and material culture of African- Americans. Shaped like a bronzed crown with each level reaching skyward on the National Mall, the National Museum of African-American History and Culture is the Smithsonian’s 19th museum, but easily the jewel in the nation’s treasury of cultural artifacts.
“There’s never been a museum devoted to African-American culture on this scale and at this level,” said Joanne Hyppolite, a museum curator. “The fact that it now exists, positioned right next to the Washington Monument, allows you to frame the full context of how American democracy was born.”
It’s a story that many Americans are still beginning to understand. Scott Hartsock, a white construction worker who installed lighting throughout the museum, took a break to watch a video in the sports gallery. “I didn’t know the Negro Leagues were a real league,” he said. “I thought it was a minor league team, but I learned it was real. I had no idea.”
An act of Congress created the museum in 2003, but funding and Washington politics slowed progress and the groundbreaking didn’t happen until 2012. It was largely the tireless efforts of historian Lonnie G. Bunch III – the new museum’s founding director, an accomplished curator and a former director at the National Museum of American History – who was able to drive the campaign to bring the museum’s mission, and funding, to fruition.
“Even with this museum, it’s a constant theme we see in African-American history, this navigation between a struggle or a wall put up,” said Rhea Combs, a curator of photography and film for the museum. “We have found ways to go around that wall to provide a glimmer of hope, a moment of glee, a sense of hope.”
The absence of a national museum dedicated to African-American history has always been a glaring omission. In Washington, where visitors to the city’s Smithsonian museums topped 28 million in 2015, African-American exhibits were spread out across several museums. A gallery inside the Museum of American History housed a portion of the collection.
Now, inside the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, there’s space for a Tuskegee Airmen Trainer Plane, used to train the all-black regiment for World War II combat duty. The plane soars above a gallery that also features a slave cabin, fumigated and removed from Edisto Island, South Carolina, and rebuilt inside the museum. The fourth floor culture galleries are home to Chuck Berry’s red Cadillac and an exhibit about Public Enemy’s contributions to hip-hop’s early role in voicing black pride and awareness.
“I see the museum as a time capsule for our history,” said Clifton Kinnie, 19, a St. Louis native, Ferguson protestor and Howard University student. “I’m hopeful that other generations will be able to come and learn the story of great people and how African Americans shaped American culture.”
Every level of the museum features a phase of the African-American story – beginning with slavery, the museum’s largest exhibit, housed two levels underground. The words of the Declaration of Independence scale the walls inside the expansive exhibit, towering above a bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson who is surrounded by bricks bearing the names of his slaves—and descendants.
“The history of this country is really its foundation, so in telling this story you have to ground yourself in that history of slavery,” Hyppolite said. “Then when you see segregation and the civil rights phase, you can begin to see how African-American culture is born and formed out of that.”
Visitors climbing the ramps to the museum’s next levels also see the successive phases of the African American story – the transition to freedom, the era of segregation and Jim Crow laws, and the Great Migration.
Along the way, visitors see defining moments of sorrow and success throughout the journey of African-Americans. The fiery red cape and hat, the wardrobe of leaders in the Ku Klux Klan, are on display. Emmett Till’s casket is here too, a reminder of the danger and injustice that at times literally hunted African Americans in the segregated South.
There are copies of the Chicago Defender, a leading voice of the Black Press. An aged poster for the black-owned Booker T. Motel welcomed black travelers. Pictures and stock certificates show the wealth and ambition of Marcus Garvey, who owned the Black Star Line, a shipping company that had a fleet of four cargo ships.
“It reminds us of all the texture of African-American culture during a bad time,” said Blair Kelley, a recent museum visitor and professor of African-American studies at North Carolina State in Raleigh. “There were black banks and the black press and the black church. They achieved all of that while people wanted to stomp out their voice.”
For more information, visit nmaahc.si.edu.
